Disneyland…Here We Come

It all started harmlessly enough. I requested a book from the digital library to enjoy while working so much these past few weeks. I thought that it would be rather enjoyable to read up on what I certainly consider The Happiest Place on Earth.

I had no idea the damage that would come as a result

While sitting in Van Nuys last Saturday, mostly minding my own business with my tablet in hand, I was reading the book and occasionally gazing out the window with glazed over eyes. When will I get there to enjoy all of these wonders again? I can honestly say that the two days that I got to spend there with my Mama last year were some of the best two days of my life! When can I rinse, later, and repeat?!

And then it hit me. I happen to have a week in April when I know that we won’t be flying. El Capitan has taken some time off officially, and the airplane won’t go far without him. So I know that I have that week off as well.

Oh my goodness. Could I really do it?!

So I called Mama to see if she was game. Of course she was! And, even better, my little fourteen year-old brother was going to come along for the ride, too! He was bitten by the Disneyland bug even more after their visit this past November as a family.

I am just amazed at how everything has fallen into place for this trip…once we decided to just make it happen. I was able to use some special bonus hotel points for free rooms, so we are only paying for one night out of our five! And the hotel, which is just two miles away, ranks fourth in a list of over a hundred in quality, right behind a few of the fancy Disneyland hotels! Not too shabby for free, huh?

I ordered tickets for the Art Shuttle to take us to Disneyland each morning (crazy early, of course). And then I scheduled Super Shuttle (my credit card information got stolen the next morning, and I’m guessing it was from this phone call. Creepy, huh?) for a ride to and from LAX. Mama used their credit card points to practically buy both airline tickets for them! And my flights on Southwest were very affordable! We land within an hour of each other and will even be able to spend most of our first day in town at the parks!

An investment that I’ve always wanted to make was an annual pass, and my wishes came true for this trip. Besides, I have some very serious plans to return to do this all again in September, so an annual pass was a wise decision indeed. Mama has an annual pass, too, and Kip’s ticket will be cheap with the help of a local friend of mine who offered some Disney points that are about to expire! How awesome can friends get?!

Do you see how all of these stars are aligning? I think it’s meant to be!

Best of all, that week in April is one of the best times to go. Because of school, most normal people won’t be able to attend Disneyland for an entire week. We will have short lines but will be far enough into Spring that the weather will be gorgeous. Seventy-five degrees, in fact.

So it’s all set. And now we are just enjoying emails and phone calls back and forth, talking about what we are most anticipating!

Is it the songs of Splash Mountain?
Is it a breakfast burrito in California Adventure?
Is it the fast-paced lunacy of Indiana Jones?
Is it the nostalgia of The Jungle Cruise (since it was closed on my last visit)?
Is it the Dole Whip Float outside of the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room?
Is it the ghost hitchhikers in The Haunted Mansion?
Is it Soarin’ Over California, or Screamin’ there instead?
Is it a sourdough bread bowl lunch of heaven at the Pacific Wharf?
Is it the cannon blasts of Pirates of the Caribbean?
Is it the abominable snowman in the Matterhorn?
Or is it Peter Pan, which is always our first ride of the day and certainly a favorite?

I guess the answer to those age-old questions is…yes. It’s all of them. I love it all and can’t wait!

After working so much these past two months and being gone almost constantly, it will be a fun way to recover from my busy winter. And I can’t think of anyone else who I could possibly enjoy such a trip with other than my Mama and Kippy. We had such a nice time in our crash two-day course there last July. It will be wonderful to have five days there to really enjoy the place!

Eek! Come on, April!

Have you been to The Happiest Place on Earth lately? Apparently, I’m not the only one who loves it there…

Book Review – The Book Thief

I think that it could be fun to start letting you know about the good books that I happen to find along my way.

A friend recommended that I read The Book Thief last week, so I put the digital copy on hold at the library and then waited my turn.

It arrived on Sunday, and by Monday evening, I had finished reading the entire thing. It was that good. From start to finish, I read the book in about seven hours.

I won’t tell you the entire story in hopes that spoiling it for you will not take place. I’ll just give a few tidbits to motivate you to read it as well.

With Death as the narrator, we discover Nazi Germany through the eyes of a non-Jewish girl and her family. It is an incredible narration.

Markus Zusak, who wrote this book and is getting much-deserved acclaim for it, found such interesting ways to describe things. At one point, when some Nazis knocked on the door, he described the door as “humming” afterwards because they had hit it so hard. That is just a small example of the thousands of ways inside the book that be brings things to life. It was magical to read because of his unique descriptions.

I’ve never experienced something written like this, and it was a sheer joy to read (other than the content subject, of course). I found myself wishing that I could write like this.

I really felt like I was there in the book with the characters. On Zimmel Street, in the basement, on the track, etc. You will experience the same thing, I hope.

And by the end of the book, I sobbed for the characters. It’s easy to love each and every one of them. Zusak is a true master at winding a story.

The story is clean with no language (at least not in English) and no physical interaction that made me want to skip ahead. I would recommend it for any age starting around twelve and up.

In fact, I wish kids and adults alike would read it. I think that we forget the horrors of war and often take our freedoms for granted. This story was a great reminder to me that freedom, or an impossible conquest to rule the world and eradicate “inadequate” races, for that matter, is never free. Someone has to pay.

When I finished, I found out that I needed to read more from Zusak. So I just began another of his books, I Am The Messenger.

Please read The Book Thief. You will be glad that you did.